Mass Effect series Review + Retrospective #2.6: Arrival
Man. Okay, I don’t know if Arrival is super beloved or anything but this DLC is a god damn slog. Unfortunately, Arrival is incredibly vital to understanding the opening of Mass Effect 3, so I can’t really say skip this one. You gotta play this thing at least once to fully understand what’s going on at the start of ME3 and the Batarians’ arc.
Arrival details the initial wave of the Reapers arriving (no way around using that word) in the Milky Way, and Shepard is gonna stop them the only way he knows how – by killing a bunch of Batarians by nuking their Mass Relay with an asteroid.
Joining us on this quest is – no one. In a baffling decision, Arrival doesn’t allow you to take any of ME2’s great characters on this mission, it’s strictly a solo Shepard event. This leads to the entire thing being an insane slog of dozens of generic merc combat and occasional moments of Shepard talking to himself.
It’s not all awful – the opening of the mission is an interesting attempt at stealth in Mass Effect – it’s not very good at it but the level having multiple routes through it is more than can be said for the entirety of the main game. The conversation with Harbinger at the end is kind of interesting, though it’s still nowhere near as cool as the one with Sovereign in ME1.
Yeah, I don’t know about this one. It just feels really long and boring. As for story implications, this explains why Shepard’s grounded at the start of ME3, but in the end it doesn’t even feel like it matters. Wow, great job nuking 300,000 Batarians to delay the Reapers by a couple months, Shep.
Anyway this fucking sucks ass but you gotta play it at least once to get the big story moment. Truly a wet fart to follow up the brilliant Suicide Mission.
Man. Okay, I don’t know if Arrival is super beloved or anything but this DLC is a god damn slog. Unfortunately, Arrival is incredibly vital to understanding the opening of Mass Effect 3, so I can’t really say skip this one. You gotta play this thing at least once to fully understand what’s going on at the start of ME3 and the Batarians’ arc.
Arrival details the initial wave of the Reapers arriving (no way around using that word) in the Milky Way, and Shepard is gonna stop them the only way he knows how – by killing a bunch of Batarians by nuking their Mass Relay with an asteroid.
Joining us on this quest is – no one. In a baffling decision, Arrival doesn’t allow you to take any of ME2’s great characters on this mission, it’s strictly a solo Shepard event. This leads to the entire thing being an insane slog of dozens of generic merc combat and occasional moments of Shepard talking to himself.
It’s not all awful – the opening of the mission is an interesting attempt at stealth in Mass Effect – it’s not very good at it but the level having multiple routes through it is more than can be said for the entirety of the main game. The conversation with Harbinger at the end is kind of interesting, though it’s still nowhere near as cool as the one with Sovereign in ME1.
Yeah, I don’t know about this one. It just feels really long and boring. As for story implications, this explains why Shepard’s grounded at the start of ME3, but in the end it doesn’t even feel like it matters. Wow, great job nuking 300,000 Batarians to delay the Reapers by a couple months, Shep.
Anyway this fucking sucks ass but you gotta play it at least once to get the big story moment. Truly a wet fart to follow up the brilliant Suicide Mission.